VRISKA: Anyway, I have no idea what to do now.VRISKA: Her ill-advised power play has ruined everything.MEENAH: wellMEENAH: we still have this treasure hereMEENAH: why dont we just do the shit without herMEENAH: you could whip up another ghost armyMEENAH: march it strait to english and start beatin him downVRISKA: I don't think so.MEENAH: why notVRISKA: If you want to know the truth........VRISKA: When we were manipul8ting all those ghosts, Aranea was doing most of the work.VRISKA: Her a8ilities are a lot more advanced than mine. I guess 8ecause she's 8een around for so long?VRISKA: I was kind of riding her coattails, making it seem like it was a true colla8oration 8etween us.VRISKA: It was actually very nice of her to allow people to get that impression. She didn't have to.VRISKA: I should have just told every8ody that. I guess I wanted to 8elieve it too. Like we were equal partners in crime. Ancestor and descendant united at last, and working gr8 together.VRISKA: I hope you don't think that makes me a huge phony.MEENAH: why would i give a fish about thatVRISKA: Yeah.VRISKA: You're right, you wouldn't.VRISKA: I shouldn't 8e saying needy shit like that.VRISKA: I'm just a 8it depressed, 8ecause it feels like I'm running out of friends all over again.MEENAH: i hear youMEENAH: she ditched me tooMEENAH: cant blame her i guessMEENAH: what can i say girl loves her piratesonaMEENAH: she wanna be dat pirate chick so badMEENAH: who am i to fault ambitionMEENAH: she cast her lure into the lake of cute but dumbass dreamsMEENAH: i think her mindfang ideal is ridic to be lochness with youMEENAH: that journal manMEENAH: tales from the pirate who wont shut upMEENAH: but thenMEENAH: im not one to talk about hero worshipMEENAH: i think my adult self happens to be the best best greatest most perfect beautiful woman -----EV-----ER an if you axed me if i wanted a crack at her job id be like glub yes put me down for T)(ATMEENAH: so i legit hope it works out for herMEENAH: but yeahMEENAH: that dont mean i didnt get ditchedMEENAH: and that justMEENAH: 38(MEENAH: makes me reel sadVRISKA: Same.MEENAH: you sure we cant salvage the plan without herVRISKA: I don't know.VRISKA: Possi8ly?VRISKA: The way I was picturing it, a major feature of the original three pronged approach was to use the army to lead a first wave assault against him.VRISKA: Then while he was preoccupied 8y all those ghosts swamping him, I would go in for the kill with the secret weapon.VRISKA: So without an army, I guess we'd need to get close enough to him to use it 8efore he killed us.MEENAH: like uhMEENAH: sneak up on him?VRISKA: I guess.VRISKA: 8ut I get the feeling Lord English is not the kind of guy you can just sneak up on.MEENAH: kay what ifMEENAH: i found some way to teleport over to himMEENAH: and i beat the shit out of him with my wrestling movesMEENAH: then you bust out the weaponVRISKA: Hahahaha.VRISKA: That would 8e awesome, if somewhat implausi8le.VRISKA: I guess we can think it over.VRISKA: 8ut if we're getting real here, this has all made me feel pretty lukewarm on the plan.VRISKA: Aranea checking the fuck out. And me recoiling at her hu8ris, which is o8viously just........VRISKA: My OWN 8ullshit, getting thrown 8ack in my face?VRISKA: It's a 8it much.VRISKA: You have to 8e a8le to trust your own judgment to make good plans, right?VRISKA: I don't know if I do anymore.VRISKA: I certainly don't right now.VRISKA: Remem8er when our crew started re8elling against me in that cave, and I was kind of lashing out?VRISKA: I think I might have 8een forcing it a little?VRISKA: Like that whole dramatic speech I gave when I jumped into the flaming pit.VRISKA: Was that really a genuine thing, or like, a desper8te last attempt to 8e who I think I should 8e?MEENAH: that was badass thoughMEENAH: i mean yeah you were chewin the scenery an being hammy as fuck but i thought it was cool and kinda funnyVRISKA: It wasn't supposed to 8e funny though!!!!!!!!MEENAH: ohVRISKA: Ah man.VRISKA: I really don't know what to do.VRISKA: I'm too depressed to think proactively a8out any of this.VRISKA: May8e the truth is I don't even care all that much if anyone stops Lord English.VRISKA: I think all I really cared a8out was getting to do it myself.MEENAH: thats a good enough reason if you ask meMEENAH: but hey if you aint feelin it you aint feelin itVRISKA: What if we just........VRISKA: Gave up on the mission?MEENAH: gave upVRISKA: Yeah.VRISKA: What do you think.MEENAH: umMEENAH: sureVRISKA: Sure?VRISKA: You don't think that would 8e a wussy move?MEENAH: well yeahMEENAH: it would beMEENAH: if a couple of cowards did itMEENAH: but that aint usMEENAH: so we cool to do whatevVRISKA: That's a very good point.MEENAH: nofin wrong with stickin a fork in a shit idea that just makes you miserableMEENAH: hell the best choice i ever made involved givin upMEENAH: one day i saidMEENAH: fuck da throneMEENAH: ran off to the moonMEENAH: thats how this whole crazy mess kicked offMEENAH: and if i didnt do thatMEENAH: i wouldnt of met you 38)VRISKA: VRISKA: ::::)

So what do we call this pause? I've been batting ideas around all day. We could go with the obvious choice, the MINIGIGAPAUSE. Or maybe, MEGAPAUSE 2: BACK IN THE MEGASADDLE. Or if that makes too much sense, we could always settle on the MICROTERAPAUSE. As you can see, there are so many incredibly intelligent and meaningful things we could call this pause. Deciding how to refer to the pause is an exercise that I will leave to the reader. Feel free to discuss the matter with friends. Or strangers. Anyone who will listen really. If they start to run away, I strongly recommend you chase them.

Why don't we say that A665 begins on 4/13. That's a fun number that we all can get excited about. I have a lot of catch-up work to do between now and then. Not the least of which is drawing the actual content to be posted. But also a lot of gamedev work. Game production is rolling pretty hot right now. Stuff is being churned out almost faster than I can keep track of. Did I mention? I accidentally started running a game studio a little while ago. Whoops, sorry about that. There are all these people being paid to make things happen, and I have to be like "Yeah, keep doing that stuff, everybody." It's getting pretty easy to lose track of how many people work for What Pumpkin. My last estimate was somewhere between 30 and 1000. The true figure is a very frisky moving target.

A6A6A5, a.k.a. Caliborn's Masterpiece, is actually done. It's probably better to hold off posting it until 4/13, when more content will soon follow aftewards. I am sure pausing on that note for months would mess with your head a lot more than the note we're already pausing on. I sometimes feel I have at least a modest responsibility to manage your sanity. It'll be tough sitting on this content though. Tougher than sitting on all of A664 for the better part of a year. I don't think it is out of line to describe it as the best material this website will ever exhibit. It will be all down hill from there, in every direction. Even up.

Speaking of sanity management, way back when, I was pretty on the fence about posting A664 spaced out over months like I did, vs. all at once. Doing the latter in hindsight probably would have been a fucked up thing to do to the internet though. The GAME OVER fallout alone was a bit much as it was. Including it in tandem with the rest of it? Not sure what to make of that. Let's review the CONTENT CRUSH that would have entailed. Bad Anime -> Game Over -> Sadstuck -> Lowas Quest -> 100 retconned panels of oil -> A bunch of other shit -> Punky Serket -> Fantroll Storytime -> 8 password pages -> The Kiss On Horse Mountain -> and finally -> The Punchline. You know, that's an awful lot of baloney to publish. I think the fell-swoop reaction to all that would have been quite a thing to behold, but also, perhaps an irresponsible thing to do to a hapless fanbase after a year in hibernation. I'm told that in 2015, young people are heavily susceptible to "the feels", and trifling with those forces could be injurious to their future development. Wait, did that just sound like something your grandpa would say? Mother fuck, where did I put my cane. Oh right, I snapped it in half from shaking it at the sky.

I may have been in the process of making a point there, but we're going to have to pick this up another time. The comic isn't going to pause itself!!!

Over the last couple months, I have been surreptitiously collapsing several update horses into single, bigger horses. This means A6A6I4 is going to end a little sooner than previously advertised. Same total page count, but finishing sooner. Please consult the important horse calendar below.

So what happens when A6A6I4 is done? I'm not quite sure yet. I'm still working on everything that comes after that. I've written it mostly, but haven't drawn anything yet. There will almost certainly be another pause, but I'm not sure how long it will be yet. I will let you know after 1/19.